美国商家迷惑行为：“黑五”不做生意

作为美妆潮牌“The Ordinary”的母公司，Deciem将在11月29日全天关闭旗下所有门店及网站，该公司称，这样做的目的是阻止人们纵欲消费，它希望大家在今年的黑色星期五做到“零欲望，零消费”。（注：黑色星期五指感恩节之后的星期五，也是美国圣诞的大采购日，商场会推出大量的打折和优惠活动，人们疯狂的抢购使得商场利润大增）

The company, which owns cult cosmetic brand The Ordinary, will close all its stores and take down its website for the whole day on Nov. 29. The aim, according to the company, is to push back against our relentless buying of stuff. And Deciem is calling for “a moment of nothingness” this Black Friday.

Deciem在INS上声明，“‘过度消费主义’已经对地球构成了极大的威胁，限时抢购的机制又会让人们因担心商品售空而做出仓促的购物决定。我们公司不再认为黑色星期五的狂欢购物是一件利于地球或消费者的好事。”

“Hyper-consumerism poses one of the biggest threats to the planet,” reads Deciem’s Instagram statement, “and flash sales can often lead to rushed purchasing decisions, driven by the fear of a sell-out. We no longer feel that Black Friday is an earth or consumer-friendly event.”

公司在一年中消费量最大的一天积极“自断财路”的行为似乎很反常，但Deciem不是唯一一家采取抵制措施的企业，在过去的五年里， 户外用品零售商REI就已经选择在黑色星期五当日关闭门店，并让1.4万名员工带薪休假。

Companies actively sabotaging themselves on one of the biggest consumer days of the year may seem unusual, but Deciem is not unique. For the past five years, outdoor retailer REI has closed its stores on Black Friday, urging its 14,000 staff — who also still get paid — to spend the day outside.

无独有偶，法国一个由200个品牌组成的团体以“重建绿色周五”为名，取消了黑色星期五为顾客提供的所有折扣，并将他们销售额的10%捐赠给非营利组织。素有良心品牌之称的“DreamAct”也参与其中，它的联合创始人黛安·斯玛克说：“这样做是为了谴责黑色星期五以及它带来的盲目消费，也是为了启发消费者理性消费。”

Meanwhile, in France, a collective of 200 brands, organized under the banner “Make Friday Green Again,” has agreed to avoid any discounts on the day and instead donate 10% of their sales to nonprofits. “The aim is to denounce Black Friday and what’s behind it. It’s to educate consumers about a better consumption,” said Diane Scemama, the co-founder of ethical marketplace DreamAct, one of the brands taking part.

传统意义上，黑色星期五是一年中最大的购物日之一，从衣服到清洁用品，再到长途度假的优惠券，人们疯狂抢购各种各样的商品。

每到这天，人们老早就在商店外排起了长队，有时等待的队伍在感恩节晚上就出现了，而这样的巨量人潮可能会引发暴力冲突甚至造成人员死亡。据一家专门追踪黑色星期五受伤和暴力事件的网站统计，自2010年以来，已经有12人死亡，117人受伤，致人伤亡的方式层出不穷，其中包括枪击、刺伤、喷辣椒水，还有一次一名顾客甚至使用皮带抽打他人。

Kicking off with lines of people outside stores, sometimes from as early as Thanksgiving evening, it can culminate in violence, even deaths. A website dedicated to tracking Black Friday injuries and violence around the world has chalked up 12 deaths and 117 injuries since 2010 — including shootings, stabbings, pepper spray and in one case a customer using a belt as a whip.

2018年11月23日，在纽约曼哈顿中心，人们拥挤在一个大型折扣招牌前

这一天已经成为了物欲的代名词，尽管它对环境的巨大影响变得越来越明显，但我们对它的追捧却丝毫不减。快时尚产业大量消耗劳动力，并且以吸引流量为唯一目的、依靠一套特殊的商业模式进行运作，即使我们知道这种产业会破坏环境，我们还是趋之若鹜；即便电子废品已经成为世界上数量增长最快的垃圾，我们仍热衷于抢购各种新出的科技产品。

The day has become synonymous with our voracious appetite for stuff, which seems undimmed, despite the hefty environmental impacts becoming increasingly obvious. We buy up fast fashion knowing the industry is a huge polluter, that it exploits its labor force and has a business model with the sole purpose of persuading you to buy more. We snap up new tech gadgets despite the fact electronic items make up the world’s fastest growing waste stream.

黑色星期五不再只是周五的活动，这一购物热潮正逐渐向前一天的感恩节以及几天后的“网购星期一”延伸，这对于员工来说并不轻松。临近周五，他们的轮班工作繁杂劳累，因此低薪工人往往不能和家人共享感恩节晚餐，他们不得不在当晚就前往商店和包装仓库轮班工作，但他们的工资却得不到相应的增长。（注：美国“网购星期一”是每年感恩节后的第一个星期一，美国电商企业会在这一天推出大规模促销活动，成为“ 黑色星期五 ”的电商版本。）

Black Friday, which now tends to bleed into Thanksgiving on one side and Cyber Monday on the other, can be very hard on employees. Low-wage workers are most often the ones leaving their Thanksgiving tables to head to stores and packing warehouses, for shifts that can be stressful, pressurized and physically exhausting — often without any bump in their wages.

 REI公司执行副总裁兼首席客户官本•斯蒂尔表示，公司决定在黑色星期五停业最初是出于对员工的关怀。他说：“我们经过了认真思考，想到我们在感恩节和黑色星期五让员工们承受的高压，我们决定后退一步。”

REI’s decision to close on Black Friday was originally made out of concern for its employees, said Ben Steele, the company’s executive vice president and chief customer officer. “When we really thought about that day, and we thought about the experience that we’re creating for our employees on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday, we just kind of stepped back.”

但在应对环境方面的影响时，公司的动机就变得没那么简单了。似乎企业在向人们传递理性消费信息同时，也在诱惑我们购买更多产品。 

But when it comes to messages around environmental impact, it gets knottier. Companies can appear to deliver messages of responsible consumption, while at the same time tempting us to buy more.

REI抵制黑色星期五的营销策略围绕消费和气候变化展开。今年，它发起了一项名为“Opt to Act”的活动，鼓励员工和客户从小事做起，来减少对环境的影响。

然而，这两家公司并没有完全放弃交易。除了停止营业期间，Deciem在整个月都提供23%的折扣，与此同时，REI在11月15日至25日期间优惠力度高达7折。两家公司都辩称，这样的销售形式利于顾客，因为顾客不必再仓促消费了。

Yet, neither of these companies has ditched deals altogether. Deciem is offering a 23% discount for the whole month (apart from during the blackout). Meanwhile, REI is offering up to 30% off between Nov. 15 and 25. Both defend their sales as providing value to their customers without pushing them into rushed purchasing decisions.

但显而易见的是，即使是那些努力想要遵守道德准则的公司，他们以盈利为基础的商业模式也表明他们的最终目标是让人们不断消费，这意味着公司还是得生产更多产品，开采更多资源，而世界上还是会有越来越多的商品。

But the elephant in the room here is that, even for companies that work hard to toe an ethical line, a business model predicated on growth means the ultimate aim is always to get people to buy more, which means producing more, which means more resources extracted, and more stuff in the world.

克拉克大学环境科学与政策教授，哈利娜·塞恩瓦尔德·布朗表示：“通过在某种程度上改变商业模式让人们不再冲动购物的确是个好主意，但这并没有从根本上改变公司以营利为目的的经营理念。”

“Changing their business model somewhat so people don’t buy on impulse,” said Halina Szejnwald Brown, professor of environmental science and policy at Clark University, “that’s a nice idea, I would agree, but it doesn’t fundamentally change the companies’ concept of success.”

巴塔哥尼亚品牌著名的广告运动完美地展示了这种矛盾。2011年的黑色星期五，这家高端户外用品公司在《纽约时报》上刊登了整页的广告，广告上有一张夹克衫的照片，文案上却写着：“不要买这件夹克。”

It’s a tension encapsulated perfectly by a famous Patagonia campaign. The high-end outdoors company took out a full -page advertisement in The New York Times on Black Friday in 2011. The image was of a jacket, the ad copy shouted: “DON’T BUY THIS JACKET.”

巴塔哥尼亚的广告文案：“不要买这件夹克”

巴塔哥尼亚在其网站的一份声明中写道：“ 作为一家公司，我们是时候直面消费主义问题并采取应对措施了。” 它通过声明向公众解释这场广告运动的用意，并希望能扭转那些说它“伪善”的声音，但问题是，巴塔哥尼亚在那一年黑色星期五的销售额却增长了30%。

“It’s time for us as a company to address the issue of consumerism and do it head on,” the company wrote on its website in a statement to explain the campaign and deflect accusations of hypocrisy. The problem was, that Black Friday sales went up 30%.

塞恩瓦尔德·布朗表明，“假如带着恶意去考虑，企业试图将自己塑造成道德商家的举动，纯粹是一种营销手段。如果往好的方面想，这些企业希望能更好地服务顾客，在黑色星期五的黎明顶着寒风排在塔吉特或沃尔玛外苦苦等待的不是他们，是顾客，企业很清楚这一点，因此更想体谅消费者的难处。但无论作何解释，公司的利润没有减少，人们的消费也没有减少。”

Viewed cynically, said Szejnwald Brown, companies’ attempts to carve out a space as ethical retailers can be seen as a pure marketing ploy. Viewed more generously, she added, they want to serve their customers and understand that they are probably not the people lining up outside Target or Walmart in the frigid dawn of Black Friday for deals. On either interpretation, she said, “there is no reduction in profit, there is no reduction in consumption.”

REI在西雅图的旗舰店外，一条横幅宣布该商店将在2018年的黑色星期五暂停营业

荷兰伊拉斯姆斯大学，鹿特丹管理学院助理教授阿米特•巴塔查尔吉表示:“许多品牌站出来反对黑色星期五的行为有一定的合理性，这对他们来说是明智的选择，这种行为也并不意味着一定要违背商业的盈利理念。”

人们总想从自己的购物行为中体验道德上的满足，这些公司只是刚好找到了达成此目标的方法。但是，巴塔查尔吉警告说:“许多道德消费本身就蕴含着讽刺意味（道德消费意味着要支付更高的溢价，这种溢价可能来源于公司在环保上作出的努力、优质产品昂贵的价格等），能够为道德消费溢价买单的往往是更富裕的人，这些有钱人通常拥有更奢侈的生活方式: 购物时置办更多的物品，生活在更宽敞的屋子里，经常乘坐飞机出行。他们的碳消费已经比那些不为环保承担溢价的消费者高出太多了。”

People want to feel morally good about what they buy and these companies find a way of doing that. But, Bhattacharjee warned, “There’s an irony here to a lot of ethical consumption.” People who can afford to pay a premium for their principles tend to be wealthier people who often have a more intensive lifestyle: who buy more, live in bigger houses, fly more. “Chances are their carbon footprints are already quite a bit larger than people who aren’t paying a premium for these sorts of products.”

塞恩瓦尔德·布朗说，如果不在文化和经济上做出能颠覆消费社会的深刻转变，“道德消费”只会是一个白日梦。

Beyond a deep cultural and economic shift that upends our consumer society, “ethical consumption” seems a pipe dream, said Szejnwald Brown.

我们消费水平的基线不断攀升，但我们无法通过购物来摆脱我们面临的多重环境危机。她说，就目前而言，能产生有利影响的最佳方式就是去思考关于“足量”的道德伦理问题。

The baselines of our consumption levels are constantly being revised upward, said Szejnwald Brown, but we can’t shop our way out of the multiple environmental crises we face. For now, she said, the best way to make an impact is to think about the ethics of sufficiency.

“那就是，理解什么东西足够让你得到发展、什么东西足够让你全身心融入生活，但这实在是一个非常深奥的概念，有多少人会坐下静心思考这个问题呢?”

“It’s understanding what is enough to allow you to thrive and to participate in life fully. But, that’s a very deep concept. How many people sit and ask themselves that question?”

原文链接：

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-friday-rei-deciem-boycott_n_5dd6e68fe4b0fb24c847a95c 

编译：张璐瑶 陈淑娟 王庶同

审核：赵寒旭

排版：张璐瑶

指导老师：刘佳